Lobster fishing methods have now become state and federally regulated. The principle state regulations dictate the specific size range of lobsters which may be taken. For example, certain specific size openings have now been mandated to allow for the smaller lobsters to escape should a trap be lost. Seasons, of course are also regulated.
The Federal Government, at the urging of environmental activists, are now even proposing breakaway buoys and lineless traps to save the right whales. Such regulations and controls cut into the profits of lobster fisherman, and thus improvements must be made in the fishing gear and fishing methods for trapping lobsters. This invention relates to new and novel improvements in an age-old art.
Lobster fishing methods have evolved over several decades to the present art of using current technology materials such as plastic coated wire metal traps, positioned on the bottom of the ocean floor and tethered to surface buoys. The age-old design of the lobster trap is based on the lobster's inherent instinct to crawl. Lobsters are not swimmers, and the traps of today and this invention rely upon the natural and inherent crawling nature of lobsters.
A rectangular lobster trap includes a series of netting funnels with ring type openings through which the lobster proceeds until he becomes trapped by failure to readily crawl to an escape route. Conventional lobster pots generally include two major tandem compartments, with the first compartment being called the kitchen, and the second and final trap compartment being called the parlor. The kitchen usually has two, or perhaps more, entrance funnels each provided with terminating circular hoops. These entrance funnels and hoop assemblies are called heads.
The hoops for such entrance heads are nominally about seven or so inches in diameter. The lobster is lead into these compartments by the scent of herring in a bait bag normally located at the junction of the two heads. That bait bag is normally located in the kitchen at the junction of the entrance heads. After the lobster passes through an entrance head and into the kitchen, it must transit a third mesh funnel which terminates at a smaller hoop in the parlor. A simple maze has thus been established in the pot.
Lobster trapping is quite unlike other marine animal trapping techniques--particularly the crab trapping industry. Indeed, the trial and error developed methods have shown that the best chance of trapping the desired size lobster is though a series of funnels and hoops with the expectation that the lobster will have difficulty finding his way back out through the maze. The lobster maze prevents an inadvertent lobster escape because, the theory goes, the lobster cannot readily retrace his path through the maze before the lobster fisherman returns to run the pots after a soak.
However, in point of fact, many lobster fisherman think that many lobsters do escape. Additionally my research has shown that a sizable percentage of trapped lobsters may indeed escape backward through the hoops and funnels. When such escapes occur prior to the lobster fisherman returning to haul his traps, the final catch is reduced.
This escape loss may be sizable. In some of my tests, for example, as many as fifteen lobsters were kept in a trap equipped with my gate; but in a similar situation without any gates on the same type trap only two lobsters were finally trapped. Although my test situations did not conclusively provide proof that final catch increases were due solely to my lobster techniques, it is my strongly developed supposition from the facts as presented, that my one way gate(s) achieve a major improvement in lobstering.
Lobsters are also different from other marine animals in their activity levels. Thus, as a further compounding factor, lobsters vary in activity depending on environmental factors of tides, ocean temperature and current changes. Additionally, the molting seasons of the lobsters causes activity changes as well. These crustaceans are at times very sluggish and lethargic, and at other times are very active, somewhat predictively so.
Such activity changes--especially on the East Coast--can occur overnight based, for example on water temperature changes. During the more active times and conditions, in addition to feeding more aggressively, the lobster is more likely to find his way out of the trap. Thus, in the ideal sense, the lobster fisherman would like to have a true one way gate that may be installed and then removed as necessary depending upon lobster activity.
Given the variable activity levels of the lobster, the ideal situation would be for the fisherman to include or exclude a minimal resistance one way trap at the discretion of his fishing instincts and knowledge. My invention fulfills that need by providing a one way gate which is virtually undetectable upon lobster entry, is easily and manually removable at will by the fisherman, and obstructs any legal-sized lobster from exiting the trap proper.
Accordingly, I herein present a solution--long sought after; but, never-before developed--to a heretofore unsolved lobster trapping problem. I teach and claim one or more truly inviting entrances in a conventional type lobster trap having blocked escape gates. A vastly improved lobster catch is the final result.
Prior to this invention, there had been no one way lobster gates which would exclusively prevent legal-sized lobsters from escaping. My invention when several gates are employed, for the first time, provides a lobster trap that is silent in operation, has very little obstruction to a crawling entry and has total obstruction which blocks escape for legal sized lobsters--yet allows shorts an escape route.
None of the known prior art teach or suggest the novel and inventive principles of my invention which accomplishes these separate functions in a way not heretofore recognized in the lobster fishing industry.